Update: It looks like Facebook has killed the leak remotely. Users who installed it are now reporting that their feeds have gone dark. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.

Facebook Home, the company's trumpeted home screen replacement effort, has been a popular point of discussion since before it was announced.

For those who missed the announcement, Facebook is looking to replace your device's normal launcher with a continuous in-your-face social bonanza, featuring a huge news feed on your lock screen, a new pop-up chat called Chat Heads, and pretty complete integration with the social network, allowing for status, photo, and other updates on the fly. Honestly, the launcher has a few really nice features that users may or may not love, depending on their regard for Facebook.

If you are one of the folks who's interested in Facebook Home, good news – a pre-release version of the launcher has leaked out, with MoDaCo conveniently uploading the .apk files for everyone's sideloading joy.

The app, as mentioned earlier, is not the final product. In fact, several things (like Chat Heads) are either broken completely or just a little buggy. In my own brief experience with the app, not much worked besides the app drawer and lock screen, both of which admittedly look pretty nice. Also leaked are new Orca and Katana (messenger and Facebook) apps, both of which will need to be installed to run Home (if you have Facebook installed, you'll need to uninstall it first). Speaking of compatibility, MoDaCo says you'll need a device with a resolution of 768x1280 or below to run Home with any success, though one commenter notes that the app works on the Nexus 7 as well.

Just hit the links below to grab the downloads and see MoDaCo's coverage.

Comments

I'm not sure if it will work on devices below 4.0 (I don't have one to test on), but as long as you can uninstall your old Facebook app and have a device at or below 768x1280 resolution, it's worth a shot.

I installed it in Bluestacks emulator which still runs 2.3 and it installed but only appears to be Facebook Messenger v 2.3.1 inhouse. This means it doesn't require ICS level APIs to install but the full app may only work on 4.0+

scuttlefield

Separate apks for the main app and the launcher. This leaves me with hope that they will continue to update the Android app separately. My worry is that they will try to push everyone into using Home by neglecting the main app.

Edwin

They cant remove the main app anyway because it is the key for the resources to FB home... It will be a nightmare otherwise to have to sync without it ;)

scuttlefield

I was worried that they would just bake the main app into the Home apk and leave the stand-alone app to (more) stale and outdated, thinking that if they don't update the standalone app, that people while chose to use Home. I'm still not convinced that they won't try to do this. (In case you couldn't tell, I don't have the highest amount of trust when it comes to Facebook...not that they have made any attempt to earn my trust.)

Edwin

Sure, I second you on that.. But the fact is home apk is just 32kb as of now.. They will be forced to build from scratch if they are going to replace the FB app.. Coz many features are still missing in home.. You can just like and scroll through feeds as of now

umataro42

It feels like they neglect the main app already. I keep giving it a chance when there's an update, and each time I go back to just using the mobile site.

Tried to install on my Nexus S with 4.1.2. It wouldn't install either of the katana or orca apps, and when I selected Facebook Home as my launcher, it just shows me a grey button with "Find me on the Builds Page" which just leads me to log in on facebook on the browser and then it just shows a white screen. Anyone with something similar?

You'll need to delete the main Facebook app and Messenger apps on your phone for the launcher to work. Katana and Orca are the new Facebook and Messenger apps. The launcher will not work unless you delete the existing facebook apps before installing the APKs.

nono68200

Works on my Galaxy Nexus but no chat heads... All SMS arrived in Native SMS App of Google.

Get a file manager, get root access, go to system, build.prop and change ro.product.model to MystUL works! on gnex *not responsible if you muck your device.

nono68200

Doesn't work for me... :-(

Stephen Fronda

Samsung GS3 Here - Seems to work well, a little laggy at first. I can't get the feeds to display however. Just a black screen with the clock and my face. Camera doesn't launch from icon on the homescreen. I can pull up the app launcher and everything else (that I know of) seems to be working well.

I did notice that if you longpress on your "face" icon, you do get additional options. Like the Camera changes to Debug.

Probably best to wait for the full version to come out on Friday.

anerik

Well, it's really buggy and some things don't work, but i can get the idea :P, looks nice. It has more compatibility than we thought

Mr. Disgusted

I am on Gingerbread and I installing all the apps and logged in to FB and Messenger, but when I choose the Facebook Home it shows the Facebook Home logo then the app crashes and exits to the default launcher :( :(

Maverick

What are you doing on gingerbread?

maverick

If you change your ro.product.model value to MystUL in build.prop Facebook Home starts working again.